Tree of Life
by myopichobbit
Summary: Love is complicated, and sometimes more about duty than affection.  Garrett Hawke/Anders.
1. A Good Day

**Note**: This story is a 'spiritual prequel' to the rest of "Tree of Life." The events in this section take place before the conclusion of _Dragon Age 2_, while the events of subsequent chapters take place in the months following the conclusion of the game. This story is a slight re-interpretation of how I personally feel "The Last Straw" questline _should _have gone, should you decide to make one very specific decision regarding Anders should you choose to side with the templars.

(**Edited 4/15/11. **Minor narrative tweaks. I edit compulsively, sry.)

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><p>It was a Hanged Man kind of night.<p>

Heavy rain lashed the Lowtown hexes, cementing in place years of accumulated filth and grime and blasting residents with a fierce wind that rendered coats and cloaks more hassle than protection from the elements. It was part of Kirkwall's charm, Varric once said. Some days the storms rolling in off the Waking Sea decided you were going to marinate in your own sweat and rain water, and there was nothing you could do about it.

From his place at the table their usual band of rag-tag misfits had claimed near the fireplace, Hawke watched the barmaids as they strategically placed buckets around the common room to catch water drizzling in through the holes in the roof. Varric joined him and offered out a second mug of beer. Hawke took it and asked, gesturing around them, "Is it just me, or does it sound as though we're surrounded by a company of soldiers relieving themselves all at the same time?"

Varric barked with laughter, grinning. "Elf, human, mage or templar—everyone's got to take a piss sometimes. Even the Maker."

"What about dwarves?"

"We're far too genteel a people to discuss something that unsightly in mixed company, Hawke, you should know better."

Hawke smiled crookedly and lifted his mug. "To knowing better, then."

"A worthy toast if ever there was one. I'll drink to that." They clinked their mugs together and drank deep.

"So tell me, in all seriousness," the dwarf asked and reclined in his seat, a surfacer prince on his throne. "How's Blondie doing? And don't try to doll up your lies behind roguish wit, that's my shtick and I can see straight through you when you use it." He twirled a crossbow bolt idly between his fingers, then used it to skewer a piece of burnt fish sitting on Hawke's tin plate.

Hawke caught the offending bolt with his fork and gave Varric a warning look. "Now's really not the best time for this conversation, Varric."

Varric grudgingly surrendered the sliver of overcooked fish. "If you'd quit being such a shut-in, I wouldn't have to nag. Can't a dwarf demonstrate a little friendly interest in his favorite human and, uh." He shot a glance down the length of the table to where Anders sat, face in his hands, having just lost his third consecutive round of diamondback to a very smug-looking Isabela. "...his favorite human's mostly-human partner?" The dwarf paused, watching them. "Actually, you might want to intervene. I think I glimpsed the deed to your estate changing hands."

"I'll just win it back later." Hawke glanced at Anders, who appeared too busy trying to snatch a scrap of paper out of Isabela's nimble fingers to overhear their conversation. "He has his good days," he intoned to Varric quietly. "Like today. Today was good. We discussed Bethany's work with the apprentices in the Circle without his luminescent lesser half joining in on the fun."

"I'm agog, messere," Varric chuckled. "You two managed a civilized conversation about the Circle? No flinging of priceless antique crockery, no hurling of insults or flesh-scorching fireballs?"

"I never said that."

"Oh." Varric's playful smirk faded. Hawke took advantage of the spell of quiet resting between them and drained half his beer in one slow gulp. The dwarf studied him. "You know, sometimes it helps me to find the funny in all of Bartrand's crazy. You should give it a try sometime."

"I'll take that under advisement, thanks."

"Maybe I'm out of line here, but are you okay? Your rugged appeal looks more... rugged, than appealing tonight."

Hawke made a noncommittal sound, studied some of the dirt under his finger nails, and nursed his drink in silence. After three years of digging in his heels and holding the line against Anders' unending barrage of templar conspiracy theories and wild accusations, it was difficult to muster up the mental fortitude required for outrage and indignation even when grousing to friends. His fatigue bit straight to the bone, an old ache that never throbbed, but never went away either. It squeezed joy out of nights like these, when he _didn't _have to beg Anders to stop writing his asinine manifesto and come to bed, to quit fishing for an argument and just finish his dinner before it got cold, to shave his face and wash his hair, to change his clothes, to remember he was more than a vessel for a poisoned virtue. There were no good days and bad days anymore, not really. Just time spent watching a decent man struggle under the weight of what his own ambitions had wrought.

Fenris had asked him once, forthrightly, why he didn't leave. "This twisted thing inside his soul has consumed him completely, whether he recognizes it or not. What he brings down on this city will land at your doorstep. You have to know this."

"I know it."

"Then why do you stay?"

There was no easy answer to that question. "I have to," he'd said. Fenris had let it slide.

He doubted Varric would do the same. The dwarf's eyes were still on him, searching and considering, fishing for a story. The strength of his sudden resentment took Hawke by surprise, but he seized on it. "My personal life won't become fodder for your tall tales, Varric," he muttered with more rancor than he'd intended, swilled down the contents of his mug dispassionately. He grimaced through the sour taste. "I'm sorry. Don't ask me about this again."

Varric held up his hands in defeat. "All right, Hawke. Have it your way."

* * *

><p>He and Anders left together during a break in the weather intending to beat the storm back to Hightown, but the black thunderclouds sprawling ahead of them had the advantage of height and speed, and began bucketing down steely sheets of rain before they even reached the market. Hawke made a vain attempt to haul his cloak over both their heads to keep them dry, but gave up when Anders purposely pulled away from him to stand in the middle of the street, his face turned up into the rain and his arms held out to his sides.<p>

Hawke stared at him. "Are you mad?"

"I wasn't aware you were still deliberating that point," Anders replied. His face carried a pleasant flush from drink, a rare indulgence given Justice's intolerance for vice.

"The jury's still out for the moment," Hawke said wryly, "but why this... odd diversion?"

"Because I've never done it before. Never just stood in the rain for no reason." Anders pushed his fingers through his soaked hair, then held his hands up to watch the water rushing over his skin in swiftly moving rivulets. He looked at his fingers like he'd never seen them before. "Because I want to."

"And there's a sudden pressing need for you to do this now?" Hawke vacillated between anger and apprehension, shied away from the ominous note of finality that wound its way through Anders' voice. The mage never could inspire simple, easily identifiable or separable feelings. He had to leave everything mired together in gray ambiguity, like a bad dream forgotten upon waking. "I hate it when you get like this."

A low rumble of thunder in the distance seemed to pull Anders back to himself. He dropped his hands to his sides and looked over his shoulder at Hawke. "Let's race back."

"Race?" Hawke repeated in alarm. "Anders, it's pissing with rain, I don't think that's a very good-"

That was the extent of the protest he was allowed, before the mage trapped his heart with a smile and took off in the opposite direction. Hawke startled, then tossed his cumbersome cloak into the gutter. "Anders, wait-_Anders!" _he shouted and tore after him.

The realization exasperated him beyond measure but he couldn't deny the unexpected thrill that overtook him, sprinting recklessly through the deluge as though he and Anders were just a pair of idiot boys headed towards an unseen and arbitrary finish line. It yanked laughter out of him in a gasp mid-stride. He hadn't done anything this patently stupid and pointless in years; maybe that was why Anders wanted to do it. Maybe they both needed it. He tailed the mage down narrow alleys, up slick flights of stone stairs, startled a guard from his nap by cutting a corner too sharply, and finally staggered out of breath into the Chantry courtyard. His blood was still rushing hotly in his ears when Anders took hold of his arm and hauled him bodily into a dark alcove just out of view of the square and grand Chantry staircase, pinned him to the wall with a kiss, fingers gnarled in his wet hair.

Hawke gave himself over to their momentary passion hungrily, shocked by the ferocity of his own need. He gripped the outside of Anders' thigh and pulled their hips flush together. "I want you," he breathed raggedly into their kiss, "right here."

Anders had already shrugged free of his coat, let it fall wetly to the ground. "Then have me."

* * *

><p>The estate's outer lamps were doused by the time they crept, half-dressed and soaking wet, through the front doors. The dwarves and Orana had turned in hours ago, leaving the house quiet save for the sleepy crackle of the banked fires in the hall and bedroom. Hawke still rode the high of his release when they fell naked into bed together, his thoughts and anxieties muted for the first time in months. How pleasant it was, he remembered, to think of nothing at all.<p>

Anders lay beside him and smoothed his tousled brown hair tenderly. He kissed his brow, let his lips linger. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, breath warm against his skin, but Hawke barely heard him. He slept dreamlessly.

* * *

><p>He was alone in bed when he woke in the morning.<p>

The storm had passed during the night and sunlight streamed unchecked into the room, illuminating the mess of parchment that now littered the floor like autumn leaves. Orana must have come in at some point to draw the curtains. Why hadn't she tidied up? Hawke sat up slowly, squinting, and fumbled for his housecoat. "Anders?"

"I'm right here." Mid-stretch, Hawke looked to the hearthfire, then grew very still. Anders sat cross-legged and naked on the carpet in front of the fire, leafing through page after page of his manifesto. His eyes skimmed the writing, his lips pressed into a thin line.

It took him a moment, but Hawke remembered how to move his limbs. He picked up his robe and slid it on, a mechanical motion. "I was going to see about bothering Orana for a cup of tea," he began. "Would you like-"

"I don't remember writing some of this." How long Anders had been sitting there on the floor organizing his manifesto into distinct piles with such single-minded focus, Hawke had no idea. The cup of tea beside him, brought in by Orana at some point undoubtedly, had gone cold ages ago. The mage ran his fingers over his handwriting, then covered his mouth as he read, gripped his jaw in an effort to still the tremor in his fingers. He shook his head tautly. "Hawke, I don't remember this."

Hawke knelt beside him and covered Anders' hand on his chin with his own. He tried to turn the mage's face towards his, gently but with purpose. "Look at me. Anders, look at me." With reluctance, Anders cut his eyes up to Hawke's face and met his stare, his brown eyes shot with streaks of red in their whites. His fatigue and anxiety were nearly palpable. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

Anders frowned. "I—no, I didn't. I couldn't. Listen—" He pulled his face from Hawke's grasp and rifled backward through his work, flipping pages in a desperate search for something he'd probably been staring at for hours already. "Where is it..."

Hawke dropped his hands down into his lap and stared at the smoldering embers in the fireplace. His gut felt leaden. "You should eat some breakfast, at least," he said, then started to heave himself to his feet. "I'll check with Orana, see what's available."

"Here it is." Anders seized his arm tightly and pulled him back down. Hawke grunted and caught himself on a stool. "This—I remember writing this part, because I presented this same argument to one of the senior enchanters back at the Circle after I passed my Harrowing: 'If magic is meant to serve man and never to rule over him, as the Maker ordained, then does the Chantry's institutionalized imprisonment of men and women possessing His gift not directly violate this covenant? A person who demonstrates magical tendencies is unjustly denied that most basic of human rights, self-determination, and is instead condemned to a life of servitude to his own gifts, and to those who hold the end of his leash. His magic becomes his manacles, his sanctuary a gallows.'"

Hawke had begun to lose feeling in his wrist from the strength of Anders' grip. He grimaced and tried to pry his lover's fingers loose. "Please," he begged. "Don't do this now. You're just going to upset yourself. You're exhausted."

"But this part," Anders went on, shaking his head, "I know I didn't write. I know it. It doesn't even sound like me, listen."

"Anders—"

"'If the stewards of the faith deliberately choose to follow a path that leaves them blind to the suffering of their flock, then the task of righting the injustices done to mages and their families throughout Thedas falls to those with the means to enact change. This mantel must be taken up, and retribution shall be a cold and unwavering sword wielded against tyranny.'" Anders lowered his work and looked back at Hawke. The sheets of parchment rustled together in his unsteady hand. "This is Justice talking, not me."

"So, what?" Hawke stared back at him. "What do you want to do about it?"

"We need to go through each chapter," Anders said with conviction, "and figure out which parts are my doing, and which parts are his, if we can."

_We_. Hawke stared at the massive body of Anders' work that spread itself messily across their bedroom floor, then curled his fingers into fists. His insides had bound themselves tightly as coiled steel again. He wanted to rip everything off the mantelpiece and tear the carpet with his hands, to bash in the windows and scream until his throat bled. Instead, he pushed himself to his feet and breathed out slowly through his nose, dragged on a fresh set of clothing to give his hands something to do. "You've become quite the prolific writer since taking over my study to construct your masterpiece," he pointed out too harshly, but his bitterness, its teeth sunk in deeply, had remarkable staying power. He crossed the room to pick up the scattered bits of paper on the floor and resisted the frustrated impulse to tear it all to pieces. "You can't expect yourself to remember every individual word, given the rate you churn them out."

"Yes, yes, remain intentionally obtuse." Anders dropped the sheaf of parchment onto the rug and braced his forehead in his palms. "I'd forgotten how good you are at doing that, reducing my work to a nuisance that embarrasses your templar-sympathizing dinner guests. You never listen."

That accusation dragged a rough laugh out of him. "Inever listen?" he demanded incredulously. "I do nothing _but_ listen to you. Maker's breath, put some clothes on." Hawke snatched up Anders' robe and chucked it at him. He waited for the mage to put his arms through the sleeves before forging on. "And when do I throw these dinner parties, exactly? When I'm not helping Varric buy off the exceedingly friendly templars who wonder what causes that healer in the Undercity to glow in the dark from time to time, or when I'm not jeopardizing Aveline's position as Guard Captain by begging her to bend the law to keep an eye on you? I've put the security of this household and the lives of our friends on the line to keep you out of the Gallows, Anders, or worse—or have you conveniently forgotten about that while wallowing in your own self-pity?"

Anders snorted. "The breadth of your sacrifice will inspire a legion of bad poets. What was I thinking? My experiences with loss and sacrifice couldn't possibly compare to the sovereigns you've gone without."

"Oh climb down off the pyre, Andraste doesn't need the company."

The mage pulled himself to his feet and shot Hawke a wounded glare. Helplessly, Hawke spread his hands to either side. "What more do you want from me? What more can I possibly do for you that I'm not already doing as we speak?"

"You could support me," Anders spat back. "You could at least pretend you care about my cause. Right now this burden is a bit much to shoulder on my own."

"No, you will _not _lay that on me." Hawke strode towards him, the last vestiges of his patience gone. He jutted a finger in Anders' face. "Your piss-poor judgment is what got you embroiled in this mess, and I've stuck by you for three years because I love you. But you chose this path, not me, and I refuse to be your enabler while you destroy your life." He clenched his teeth. "Our life."

Anders stood rooted to the spot, like a force stronger than his own considerable stubborn will had taken hold of him. There was passion and anger and outrage in his eyes, and a flicker of blue-white that seemed to diminish the light in his own soul with every passing year. Hawke ached with despair to see it. "There has only ever been this path, Hawke," Anders said. "Justice for every mage in Thedas demands I see this through to the end."

Justice for every mage in Thedas at the cost of one man—this one very specific man—was too steep a price for Hawke. He seized the front of Anders' robe and jerked him close, stared searchingly into his eyes, but there was no sign of where Anders stopped and Justice began. They blended into each other seamlessly, a piece of the Fade with indomitable ambition feeding off the hopes and dreams of a man who lost pieces of himself to one simple idea every day. Would Tranquility have been so terrible an alternative, if it eased this slow death of the soul?

His throat constricted tightly, moisture rushing to his eyes. "There is no justice," he accused bitterly, "in what you've done to him." Anders' brows drew together slightly, and Hawke glimpsed something quicken in his stare, a flicker of recognition.

The mage reached up and brushed the backs of his fingers across his cheek. Hawke closed his eyes and tilted his face into the gentle caress, his anger leaving him in one pained, ragged breath. He loosened his tight grip on Anders' robe and slid his arms instead around his waist and shoulders, let his forehead rest against his lover's. He felt winded, like he'd run a mile in chains. "Please," he whispered, "just have some breakfast. Please."

Anders pressed his lips together and nodded. "Okay."


	2. Turn and Face the Tiger

**Notes**: In which I speculate over what, exactly, the Wildervale looks like, and allow my gruesome imagination to run hog wild for a couple thousand words. This story is set approximately eight months after the end of DA2. **Edited 4/9/11. **(The end of this section has been grating on my nerves for days now. Finally fixed it.)

* * *

><p>It was terribly quiet, traveling alone.<p>

Anders sat on a rocky peninsula jutting out into some unnamed lake nestled deep inside the Wildervale and watched the last vestiges of daylight disappear behind the crest of the western hills. The nighttime sounds of cooing owls and crickets starting up their chorus and the repetitive lapping of the water against the stones at his feet kept his ears from buzzing, but that was all. It would have been nice, he thought wistfully, to have someone to talk to. Even Nate Howe.

He slapped a mosquito making merry with the side of his neck and pulled a face at the red smear of gore on his palm. If only he could have been an indoor revolutionary. That would've made his life much easier.

He shook his head to dispel the little seed of a thought, to keep it from taking root. Worthy causes were meant to break your back and sunder your resolve, to put your convictions to the test. He'd written that down on another occasion when he found himself pining after the simple creature comforts he couldn't afford to want—a cup of tea, a warm bed lacking fleas, the life he left behind at the Hawke estate in Kirkwall—but was that his opinion, or Justice's? "This is what must be done," he murmured into the air. Were those his words, his voice, or Justice's?

The fire he'd conjured earlier crackled invitingly on the narrow stretch of beach a few yards behind him. Anders sent one more pensive look towards the horizon, then got to his feet and began picking his way back towards camp.

A twig snapped in the undergrowth. Out of the dark, a familiar northern brogue said, "Don't move."

Anders stepped on a loose stone and nearly lost his footing. Unsteady, he drew his hands up and squinted into the trees. "I'm unarmed."

"Clever words, from a mage." Sebastian Vael stepped out of the woods and onto the sand, his bow held aloft with an arrow notched. The string creaked tautly. "Hello, Anders."

Anders fixed his eyes on the pronged arrow head pointed straight at him. "You know," he began, "you would have made an excellent templar."

Sebastian remained disturbingly impassive. "Shut up, or I'll shoot you down where you stand." Obligingly, Anders pressed his lips together. The prince jerked his head towards the shore. "Walk forward, slowly. I'm watching you."

Anders tried to estimate Sebastian's chances of achieving a lethal shot at this range, should he try to incapacitate the prince long enough to make a break for the woods. The sheer force of the arrow's impact would wreak havoc wherever it landed if it didn't do him in outright, and summoning the energy to heal himself while running wasn't an option. He was well and truly fucked.

He stepped down from the rocks, eyes still on the arrow Sebastian kept trained on him, and said, "Well this is exciting. What now?"

Sebastian didn't answer him. He didn't need to. Instead, he raised his voice and called out, "Lieutenant, bind this murderer's hands." A soldier sporting Starkhaven colors and flanked by two armed swordsmen emerged from the tree line and approached him with purpose. She carried manacles that glowed faintly from the neutralizing runes inscribed on their surface, and Anders grimaced as she fastened them too tightly, felt the rough iron pull against the insides of his wrists in a manner that would leave the flesh rubbed raw in no time.

He flexed his fingers tentatively; his senses felt dulled, like someone had pulled a blanket over his face and stuffed cotton into his ears. So much for magicking his way out of this predicament. He shot a vindictive look Sebastian's way, watched the prince as he lowered his bow. "What now, Sebastian?" he repeated coldly.

The prince was a hair's breadth away from righteous savagery, and looked very much like he didn't know what to do with himself now that he had his sought after prize bound in front of him. He took measured, predatory steps towards the mage, his hands curled into loose fists at his sides, and circled him once, sizing him up. His handsome features had darkened with bitterness, his eyes fierce and unforgiving and frighteningly familiar. They stared at each other wordlessly for a long, tense moment.

He had ample warning, saw Sebastian draw back his fist, but all he did was close his eyes and brace himself. Sebastian's punch hit him squarely in the jaw with so much force that Anders' head snapped backward and he spun clear around, throwing up his shackled hands to catch himself against a tree trunk. The bark scraped angrily across his forearms, and he saw nothing but a vast expanse of stars and swirling lights that splintered suddenly with white hot agony as Sebastian kneed him in the small of his back. He seized a fistful of Anders' hair and flung him by his scalp into the sandy soil, where he landed hard on his side, jarred by the impact, and instinctively jerked up his arms to protect his head.

Which left his midsection exposed and vulnerable. Sebastian advanced on him relentlessly and delivered a kick to his stomach so sharp and brutal that Anders spasmed, shuddering violently as he vomited all over himself. He had nothing left to bring up when he was kicked a second time, then a third, and lay bruised and dry-heaving in his own mess as Sebastian paced away from him, hand to his forehead as though stunned by his own brutality.

Anders coughed wetly, his whole body trembling and screaming in his ears, and stared at the back of Sebastian's head. He tongued his split lip. "Surely it would've been less effort," he wheezed, "to just shoot me." Provoked, Sebastian spun around and struck him in the jaw with the spurred heel of his boot, and Anders choked on a breath of air as he rolled over onto his back, felt a loose molar tickling the roof of his mouth. He rounded his lips and spat it out in a mist of red.

Sebastian seized the front of his robe with both fists and hauled his limp, unresponsive body halfway upright. Anders lolled his head to the side, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth, but Sebastian jerked him back, forcing their eyes to meet. "Now," he said through clenched teeth, "I ask the Maker to give me the strength not to kill you myself before we get to Starkhaven. I want you to see justice firsthand as you answer for your crimes."

The tang of iron swam hotly around Anders' tongue, his vision flickering at its edges. He was going to die. He had nothing left to lose. With a reddened smirk, he rasped, "Sounds fun," and spat a mouthful of blood in Sebastian's face.

Sebastian jerked his head back too late, grimaced, and dropped Anders back into the dirt. He stood up, methodically withdrew a kerchief to wipe his face clean. "Lieutenant, tether this monster to my horse. I will happily drag him to the gallows as a bloodied corpse if he can't keep up. He deserves no mercy."

The lieutenant hesitated only for a moment, before complying. "Yes, your highness."

* * *

><p>Sebastian ran Anders ragged through the vale.<p>

He imagined, during the fleeting moments in between blackouts, that this was what being keelhauled must feel like, only with more drowning and fewer brambles. There was no way he could have kept up with the Rivaini stallion's long-legged stride for more than a few desperate paces, and so when his boot caught on a protruding root and he toppled forward, he didn't bother trying to scramble upright again. He was dragged along by his bound and straining wrists like a slab of gamy meat in need of tenderizing, the grass and earth and stones tearing at fabric and exposed skin like he was nothing tissue paper. At his first agonized shout, a humiliating and involuntary plea for mercy that Justice recoiled at wildly inside his skull, Sebastian spurred his horse straight into a gallop and charged out of the thatch of trees and over the downs, his pace purposefully vicious.

If the horses had had the stamina for it, Anders had no doubt that he would have been dragged all the way to Starkhaven by his broken wrists and left to die alone in some dank jail cell. As it was, it seemed only Sebastian had the stomach for this extended torture, because after less than an hour, his lieutenant reined in her horse and demanded, "Highness, please, you're going to kill him!"

Sebastian clicked his tongue and slowed his mount to a canter, a trot, and then stopped it altogether. The momentum of their violent pace sent Anders rolling straight into the horse's back legs, and it kicked him, adding insult to injury. He grunted and tried to haul his shattered limbs as close to his midsection as he could, wheezing each labored breath through his broken nose. His eyes nearly swollen shut, he squinted through the long grass at the prince's noble silhouette in his saddle. Sebastian looked back at him with something like disgusted wonder in his clear blue eyes, but whether or not he'd lost his taste for savagery yet, Anders couldn't tell. He wasn't sure it mattered at this point.

The lieutenant dismounted and approached him with dread. "Maker," he heard her gasp, "is he dead?"

"No," Sebastian said, his stare hardening with a cold resolve that reminded Anders, ironically, of his own. "Unfortunately."

The soldiers around him shifted restlessly in their saddles. Sebastian looked away from Anders to survey their surroundings. The river valley spread out away from them in all directions, thatches of trees interrupting the horizon. It was a clear night, the stars spread across the sky in a great swatch of blue and black and purple. "Make camp. We press for Starkhaven at first light."

Someone hacked in half the rope that kept him tethered to the prince's horse. Sebastian stared down at him where he fell in the grass. "You deserve every excruciating moment of this," he said fiercely, "and the Maker will see you suffer worse in the Void." He gathered his reins and wheeled his horse around, trotted away.

Bloodied nearly beyond recognition, Anders lay with the crickets and other earthy crawling things, unmoving and undisturbed and watching the blades of grass with dull interest as the wind shifted them tenderly. The overwhelming hopelessness of his situation was so absurd that he tried to laugh, but was too broken to do anything other than choke on the air. At least he was allowed the precious luxury of real hate. That didn't require the movement of muscle or tendon. It filled him up and muted his agony long enough for him to spit, "Go f—fuck yourself, Vael." But Sebastian was already gone.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and jerked involuntarily. "Please, be still." It was the lieutenant. She pressed an open flask of water to his lips. "Drink."

Justice shamed him for it, but he did. He wasn't ready to die.

* * *

><p>The Viscount of Kirkwall and his men arrived an hour before dawn.<p>

Tied to a post so he couldn't escape—though how Sebastian expected him to escape with more bones broken than whole, he wasn't sure—Anders drowsed listlessly when he heard the horses' hooves against the soil and the clink of bridle and bit. He thought it was Sebastian pulling up camp at first, until the air around him suddenly exploded with activity, soldiers leaping from their pallets and shouting in alarm and outrage as the Viscount and a full company of armed soldiers bearing his standard rode into the firelight. Sluggishly, Anders tried to pull himself to his feet, but his ankles crumbled under his weight and he collapsed, out of breath and reminded acutely of his agony.

Sebastian stormed out of his tent towards Hawke with fire in his eyes. "No," he snarled, his voice striking through the fray like lightning, "you will not drag this abomination from justice a second time, Viscount. I forbid it!"

Hawke rested his hands on the horn of his saddle and stared back at Sebastian, undaunted. "Do you." At his right hand, a familiar tattooed elf dismounted his horse and moved to intercept Sebastian. They stopped in front of each other separated by a distance of mere inches. "I scarcely believe how Kirkwall deals with its criminals," Hawke continued, "is any business of Starkhaven's."

"Starkhaven will uphold the divine law of the Chantry when Kirkwall fails in its duty to do so, which it has." Sebastian cut his eyes to the elf in front of him. "Get out of my way, Fenris."

"Not likely," came Fenris's gravelly reply.

"Then Kirkwall thanks Starkhaven gladly for their involvement in apprehending a wanted fugitive, and appreciates their cooperation in turning him over to the appropriate authority. Namely me." Hawke swung his legs over the saddle and landed easily on his feet. He moved towards Sebastian, but for a brief moment his gaze lingered on Anders where he slouched against the post. Anders' heart quickened in his chest. Half a year without him, and the sight of that untameable brown hair and those fiercely noble brown eyes brought everything he'd thrown aside tumbling back to the forefront of his thoughts.

Sebastian moved to meet him, his men falling in behind him with their hands on their weapons. "You're a fool if you think I don't know this is personal, Hawke."

Fenris reached for his greatsword, but Hawke lifted a hand to stop him. He met Sebastian's eyes. "Take a good look at what you've done to him, Sebastian," he said, and jutted his jaw towards Anders. "Tell me this isn't personal for you, too."

Anders saw Sebastian's head turn a fraction, before the prince stopped himself and fixed his eyes back on Hawke. "That monster should thank the Maker I didn't do worse. After what he did to Elthina, Her Grace—" His voice cracked unsteadily, and he wavered as though doubting himself. He drew a breath. "He i_deserves/i_ to i_die/i_! I won't let you stay my hand, not when I'm so close—"

"So close to what? Vengeance?" Hawke cut him off with a dismissive gesture. "You're no better than he is. Fenris, cut him loose."

Fenris started forward. Sebastian seized his arm."Don't you dare."

"Get your hand off me."

"This is not a negotiation." Hawke stepped between them, forcing Sebastian to loosen his grip. Fenris jerked his arm free and moved towards Anders without looking at the state of his face. Hawke watched him go, then leveled Sebastian with a shrewd stare. "We're taking Anders back to Kirkwall, Sebastian, and what is done with him there is for me alone to decide. You _will_ respect my authority over my city and its citizens, or you will face dire consequences. It's your choice."

Fenris's knife sawed through the rough length of rope holding Anders against the post. He caught the mage with uncharacteristically gentle hands as he slumped towards the grass, clotted injuries oozing stickily as movement pulled them open with excruciating slowness.

Sebastian stared back at Hawke. "I won't forget this."

Hawke watched as Anders, incapable of walking, was carried by Fenris like a tattered rag doll to the company's equipment wagon and laid down amid the soldiers' rucksacks and provisions satchels. He looked back to Sebastian and studied him, their shared silence heavy with significance. "Your choice," he repeated, then turned and strode back to his horse.

He pulled himself up into the saddle and gathered the reins. "Move out."

* * *

><p>The first thing Anders noticed upon waking was newfound, painless flexibility in his wrists, which now bore the weight of two ivory bands. The second was that he lay in a proper bed in a room more extravagantly furnished than any he'd seen before in his life.<p>

He sat up slowly, still expecting the sharp, stabbing pain of broken bones and torn ligaments, but a quick glance at his arms and legs revealed that he'd been seen to by a healer, and one whose gift for the craft nearly matched his own. He decided to be envious, rather than grateful; he wasn't deaf. Hawke hadn't staged a rescue mission. This was simply a more comfortable prison cell with flexible bars.

"Ah. You're awake." Fenris stepped out of a shadowed corner, his arms folded over his chest. He nodded to the set of clean clothes resting on the nightstand. "Get dressed. Hawke will see you in his study."

Anders drew the covers securely around his waist. "Hello to you, too."

Fenris looked him over, snorted, and saw himself out.

The Viscount's private suite was neatly partitioned off from the rest of the keep, and so Anders passed only a few knowing faces as he left what appeared to be one of many guest suites and wandered, half-lost and half-incredulous, down the main corridor. He could hardly imagine his Hawke living in such austere surroundings—and where would the old hound, Mick, go to stretch his legs without knocking over something undoubtedly antique and priceless?

He quieted himself. What vapid and pointlessly indulgent thinking. He should know better.

Hawke's study door was cracked an inch, allowing a sliver of yellowed light to pass through and spill across the ground. Anders paused outside, his hand hovering over the latch, and steeled his will. He knocked twice. "Hawke? It's—me."

"Come in."

Anders pushed the door open carefully and stepped inside. Hawke sat behind Dumar's old desk at an angle, his fingers steepled in front of himself and his eyes somewhere far away. He looked like a boy playing at king while his father was away, until he looked at Anders and the mage saw the slight wrinkle of crow's feet at the corners of his severe eyes, the peppering of gray beginning to appear at his temples. This new life had hardened and aged him. How many of those tired lines were the work of unending responsibilities? How many could Anders claim as his own?

He didn't know what to say. Longing, and a sudden spike of anger, caught in his throat. "You look—Fenris said that..." he began, and gestured helplessly over his shoulder.

Hawke nodded once. "I did." He motioned with a hand to an empty seat on the opposite side of his desk. "Please, sit down."

Anders walked stiffly to the chair and eased himself down into it. He held onto the arm rests like he might fall into the Void if he let go of them. Hawke shifted in his chair and leaned his weight against the desk. "How are you feeling?"

Anders hazarded a thin smile. "Well, I've certainly felt worse, haven't I?" He looked down at his wrists and held one of them up, showing off the innocuous looking ivory band that had resisted his meager attempts to squeeze it off. "I take it this is your doing. They're a fair sight prettier than the last set, but that's as far as my good humor extends, I'm afraid."

Hawke wasn't smiling. "Don't try my patience, Anders."

"Do I seem contentious? I'm terribly sorry." Anders didn't check the venom that seeped into his tone, and could see the residual warmth in Hawke's eyes, vestiges of a life they didn't share anymore, cooling in response to it. This fight hadn't even begun yet, and Anders already heard it resonating like a death knell. "Maker forbid I react poorly to exchanging one set of shackles for another."

"You're clearly still mad if you were expecting a different reception from me." Hawke dipped his head some and frowned at a stack of neglected paperwork on the corner of his desk. He rubbed two fingers against his eyebrows. "I have a responsibility to this city I can't ignore."

There was something in Hawke's tone that gave Anders pause. The satisfying outrage he'd been nursing since sitting down fell flat in the face of it. He tried to affect neutral, detached interest when he looked back at Hawke, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Why am I even here? What are you going to do with me?"

Hawke pressed his lips together, met Anders' stare, then looked at his paperwork again. "I haven't decided yet."

The words rang hollowly in his ears, as though he was watching a feeling rather than experiencing it. Anders looked past Hawke's head at the dull morning light sifting in past the drapes. He thought of the crickets and the owls and the grass, and the night time sounds he'd ignored while laying, beaten but alive, in the vale. His throat grew impossibly tight. "Are you going to kill me?" he asked.

Hawke's breath left him in a rush and he stood, pushed his fingers through his hair and turned to brace his weight against the window. "I told you," he repeated, "I haven't decided yet."

Anders stared at the back of his head, his shock overwhelmed quickly by incredulity. "Haven't decided—how can you say that? How can you deliberate over my execution in front of me like we're discussing breakfast?"

"What do you expect me to say?" Hawke demanded, then added venomously, "_I've _never lied to _you_. I don't intend to start now."

The retort packed more of a punch than it would have if Hawke hadn't had his back turned. Anders endured it with a spurned wince but wasn't cowed. "So that's the best you can offer me? You 'haven't decided yet'?"

"You asked," Hawke shot back and spun to face him.

Anders shot to his feet as well. The timbre of the fight was blessedly familiar, even if the subject matter was something new and horrifying. Even Justice knew the finality of death. "So that's it, then? You save me from the Starkhaven gallows just to have me strung up for all the mage-hating Kirkwallers to admire? I bet that's a favored past-time for your subjects—afternoon tea and a mage-lynching on the square with cakes."

With an old weariness in his voice and eyes, Hawke said, "They don't hate all mages, Anders. Just you."

_Just you. _Anders' voice retreated somewhere deep inside himself, the fight gone out of him in a word. He wavered on his feet and leaned back to brace his weight against the chair. He looked at the angle of Hawke's jaw where it was covered by his stubble without really seeing it. "And you'd do it," he said quietly, unquestioningly, because he knew the answer even as he spoke.

Something in Hawke's face cracked, and he came around his desk, reached out as though to touch Anders, but stopped himself, his fingers curling in on themselves. He'd gone pale with grief. "You have no idea," he whispered, "how much I didn't want to find you."

There was no comfortable intimacy in the silence that settled between them. Anders felt his ears ringing. "What happens now?" he asked.

Hawke had taken advantage of their silence to gather his composure. He looked fierce again, noble and handsome and untouchable, but his stare had thawed. "There are... decisions, for me to make," he said. "The Knight-Commander will take you to the Gallows. When I've come to a decision-" The mage watched him pause, met his eyes momentarily, and saw them flick away. "I won't leave you waiting."

The corners of Anders' mouth tugged upward grimly. "Small blessings, I suppose."

That night he lay awake in the Gallows, and wondered if Justice would be alone when he crossed the Veil.


	3. The Way Forward

**Notes**: This story is a direct continuation of "A Good Day" and "Turn and Face the Tiger," a mini-series based off of how I would've preferred certain events to transpire, should you make a specific decision during 'The Last Straw' questline. There is one more part that is _definitely_ in the works, and if you want drama and angst, HO BUDDY this will deliver.

Thanks very much to min_o for her beta services!

* * *

><p>The three days Hawke had given himself to decide what to do with the prisoner locked away in the Gallows turned out to be unnecessary. As soon as he was alone, he knew with grim certainty that there was only one option.<p>

He sat at his desk and stared at the neatly penned execution order the seneschal had left for his perusal. Death by beheading; a gentler method than traitors and murderers were normally afforded, but Hawke had taken full advantage of his position as Viscount. He'd already requested the services of a well-known Orlesian swordsman residing in Cumberland who would reach the city by nightfall. A skilled hand, he'd been told, who always made it quick and clean. In the thick fog he'd lived in for the past forty-eight hours, Hawke supposed that was a good thing.

The arrangements had been made. Knight-Commander Cullen was on standby. The only thing missing was the Viscount's signature.

Fenris sat across from him. The elf rarely interrupted their silences. Hawke fingered his quill, then dropped it into the inkwell and sank back in his seat. Fenris leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "You can't put this off for much longer."

Hawke shot him a look heavy with old anger that had festered years ago, but wasn't sure who should own it anymore; if it belonged to Anders or Justice, the mages or the templars, the Chantry, the Maker, or just to himself. Definitely not Fenris. He looked aside. "I should have killed him myself when it happened." Mercifully, Fenris held his tongue.

The execution order wasn't going anywhere. It sat innocuously on his desk, the allotted space for Hawke's signature a yawning blank. Hawke pressed his lips into a thin line. "It's that easy, is it," he murmured bitterly.

"No," Fenris said and met his eyes when Hawke looked up. "But it has to be done."

Simply looking the other way and allowing Anders to slip undetected from the Gallows, it seemed, wasn't an option palatable to anyone but himself. Hawke rubbed a hand over his jaw, palm chafing against his neglected stubble, then reached stiffly for his quill again. The weight of it felt unnecessarily substantial between his fingers. "What was he even doing back in the Free Marches? I'd've thought he'd head straight for Minrathous at the first opportunity."

Fenris spread his hands in a wordless gesture, and Hawke found his silence irrationally infuriating. "I need some air." He rose from his seat and made for the door, the order left unsigned on his desk.

"Hawke." Fenris stood and took two steps after him. Hawke paused in the doorway to look back. "For your sake, don't draw this out."

"Don't." Hawke held up a hand to silence him. "Just—don't."

Fenris frowned regretfully. "I'm sorry," he said. Hawke left him standing in his office and disappeared down the corridor.

* * *

><p>The keep had a pleasant interior garden accessible only to the Viscount and his household. Hawke imagined that Saemus and Dumar had spent their happier afternoons here together during spring and summer, before the qunari arrived and threw their world into disarray. It was difficult not to find some small joy in the abundance of color and light and the sweet smell of nectar from the flowers, but theirs must have been a lonely life, father and son, alone in this massive keep without a wife or mother or any other family for company.<p>

His legs seemed to move of their own accord and carried him to one of the Tevinter fountains, a relic from a bygone era. He turned one of his old Fereldan coppers over in his palm, then flipped it into the water. It was a childish impulse, but he closed his eyes and wished for something unattainable anyway.

One of the garden doors creaked open. Aveline's gait was easily recognizable to him after six years of enduring her dogged efforts to keep tabs on their eclectic little family, which had grown so very far apart since the rebellion. She came to stand beside him and touched his arm with such gentleness that he shuddered, the tension he'd grown accustomed to carrying tightening impossibly in his shoulders.

"Hawke," she said.

He turned to look at her, at the earnestness on her face and in her green eyes, and found he had to look away immediately. "Maker," he swore, "does the whole keep know?"

Aveline shook her head. "No, Fenris has kept it pretty quiet. But he thought you might need a friend."

They stood together and watched the water spill into the fountain basin, the coins that littered the bottom winking and blinking in the fading afternoon light. Everything looked unfairly beautiful, lit by the orange glow of late summer. Hawke breathed out slowly, steadying himself. "I've made all the necessary preparations." The deed sounded so clinical phrased like that—necessary preparations, the nasty business of orchestrating the execution of a man he'd spent three years loving and protecting. The lump in his throat was hard to swallow, but so was the reality of this nightmarish dream sequence. "There's a swordsman en route. It's just a matter of signing the order and then letting time pass."

Aveline considered her words. "Don't you think it might be better to let someone else—"

Hawke looked at her sharply. "Let someone else what? Take care of all the messy details for me so I don't have to get my hands dirty?"

"Yes," Aveline countered, "that is exactly what I was going to say, if by 'get your hands dirty' you mean 'torment yourself unnecessarily with cruel and extended heartache.'" She frowned at him crossly. "Try not to put words in my mouth."

Hawke bit his tongue and studied the greenery surrounding them. "Sorry."

"I'm not your enemy," she reminded him.

"I said I was sorry, Aveline." They shared a half-hearted glare between themselves, before Aveline's brow smoothed some and she settled her hand against his arm again. It took him a moment, but Hawke covered her hand with his and squeezed. "I have to be the one to take care of this. I owe him that much."

She accepted his answer with a nod. "When will it happen?"

"Tomorrow, at noon." His breath left him in a rush, and every muscle trembled as if from physical strain that had gone on for too long. "I don't understand why he didn't just stay away."

Aveline stood beside him in silence. There was nothing that she could have told him that he didn't already know himself; that it was this or war with Starkhaven, that the law demanded it and Anders' victims deserved it, that this inevitability had been set in stone by a naïve and idealistic young man in Amaranthine years before Hawke could have even known him to intervene. Anders had to die. Better it was death by a hand that loved him in spite of everything, than by a prince who hated him, still bent on perpetuating a destructive cycle of vengeance.

"Have you been to see him in the Gallows?" Aveline asked, interrupting the stretch of silence. Hawke couldn't get his voice to cooperate, not without sacrificing the composure that kept his chin up and his back straight, and shook his head tautly. She frowned. "Listen to me: if there is anything left unsaid between you, you need to say it."

The unspoken 'before it's too late' sank heavily against his back. 'Too late' was a vague blue-gray shape in the distance gathering form and substance with each passing minute, and no amount of fervent denial would push it away or freeze it in place. What words could they share that wouldn't collapse under the weight of what had already happened, or what was coming? "One last shouting match before the end," he said bitterly, "what could be better."

Aveline looked like she might strike him. "Don't be a coward. If you don't do this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

"I'm about to sign his death warrant. What could I possibly say to him that he'd want to hear?"

"None of this is about want. It's about need—yours, to say nothing of his." She watched his profile twitch into a pained frown. "Just consider it. That's all I ask."

Hawke stared at the garden path without seeing it, but dragged his eyes to Aveline's face when she took his hand. She didn't quite smile, but the hard, reliable kindness that had always defined her was there, a steady hand to help him pick up the pieces when the time came. "I'm here when you need me, Hawke."

"Like always," he said. "Thank you, Aveline."

* * *

><p>Nights at the Hanged Man had lost their appeal over the long months since the rebellion was put down, but Fenris knew of no other place to go to stifle the growing disquietude that twisted in his stomach. He shouldered the door open and ducked inside, overwhelmed by the pungent and peculiarly reassuring stink of Lowtown nightlife, and squinted as his eyes adjusted.<p>

The rest of Kirkwall was afire with change, but the Hanged Man apparently mistook itself for the leopard with a disinclination to alter the arrangement of its spots, and had stubbornly remained the same. The scorch marks charred into the walls from misfired spells might as well have been decorative pieces, and a stray qunari pike lodged impossibly deep into the floorboards now served as a coat rack. Only the clientèle had changed over the months. Fenris sent a tentative glance towards the bar, but Isabela still wasn't there.

"Well, look who it is. Pull up a chair, elf, I was just thinking about you."

Unwillingly, the corners of his mouth turned up in something that might have been a smile. Varric Tethras had staked his claim on a small table near the fireplace, his attention divided between the beer in his hand and the book in his lap. Fenris picked his way fastidiously forward. "Dwarf," he greeted. "I see you still burn the midnight oil."

"Not a common occurrence these days, I assure you," Varric chuckled. "You'd know that if you stopped by to do more than stare broodingly at that vacant bar stool."

"I might if you didn't insist on bringing that up in every conversation." Fenris slid into an empty seat. One of the barmaids came up to him with his usual tankard of beer, but he stopped her. "Whiskey for me tonight, I think. Two." She blinked at him, surprised, but complied and went back to the bar.

Varric raised his eyebrows nearly to his hairline. "Well, that was... unexpected. And expensive." Fenric leveled him with an unreadable look. The dwarf closed his book, set it aside, and leaned his forearms against the table. "What's going on?"

The barmaid returned with both his shots. Fenris picked up one of the small glasses and sniffed the stuff, tossed it back, and grunted involuntarily as it tore a fiery path down his throat. "I'm surprised you don't already know," he rasped and smirked without satisfaction. He toyed with the empty glass, then set it down heavily. "Perhaps I've grown better at managing the flow of information than I realized."

"Now you're just toying with me."

Fenris picked up the second glass and swallowed the whiskey down, bared his teeth briefly, then dropped the glass to join its partner. "A mage and a Fade spirit walk into a city-state," he began and looked at Varric, whose short-lived confusion quickly gave way to a knowing, dismayed wince.

"Stick with the sullen, taciturn routine, elf," he said. "Your comedic timing is terrible."

"So I've been told."

"Bloody ancestors." Varric sighed and reached for his mug, started to lift it, shook his head, and set it down again. "And Hawke is—?"

"Dealing with him." He hoped. The unsigned order of execution flitted through his thoughts. "He's a fool if he thinks Sebastian won't raze Kirkwall to the ground otherwise."

Varric cleared his throat. "Point of interest? Killing him won't rebuild the Chantry, or resurrect the Grand Cleric."

"Do you have a better alternative?" Fenris retorted, noticed a few curious glances sent towards their table, and lowered his voice to a bitter whisper. "Let him go free to incite further rebellion across Thedas? No, why not invite him to move into the Viscount's suite? That is exactly what this city desires in His Excellency's consort: an apostate _terrorist_ possessed by a vengeance demon." He scowled over his shoulder at the bar. "Where has that wench gone? I need another drink."

"All I'm saying," Varric argued lowly, "is that Choir-Boy had better come up with a more compelling reason to play at generals and soldiers here in Kirkwall than a disagreement over due process. What Hawke does with Anders is—" He hunted for the right word, then shook his head and threw a hand up in defeat. "Sod it, I don't even know. He's a friend, it's a separate issue."

Vitriol left a sour taste in Fenris' mouth. He looked towards the large table near the middle of the common room they had crowded around on nights when the weather rolling off the Waking Sea was so intolerable it chased them all into each other's company—some willingly, some, like himself, for want of other options. "Circumstances kept us all close together for a long time."

"That's a sweetly sentimental and mostly inaccurate assessment of the past," Varric remarked.

Fenris sent him a withering look. The barmaid returned with a third shot of whiskey, which he let sit on the table for a moment. He watched her go, then curled his fingers around the glass. "My point is, it cannot matter what we used to be to each other. The past is done. It must be let go for us to deal with the present."

The dwarf snorted. "Yeah, sure, elf. Let me know how that works out for you." He nodded pointedly to the bar. "You should've gone with her."

"I couldn't. Hawke—" Fenris stopped himself. "I have my responsibilities here."

Varric regarded him dubiously, cut his eyes to the torn and faded strip of red fabric still tied around the hilt of the elf's knife, then hoisted himself to his feet. "I'm feeling the need for another round. What about you?"

Fenris picked up the shot glass and downed its contents in one swallow. His buzz had effectively muted the persistent internal monologue that never gave him a moment's peace. "One more," he said. It was, after all, a Hanged Man kind of night.

* * *

><p>The long walk back to Hightown in the black hours preceding dawn helped to mostly sober him up. He bumped into Donnic en route, though whether that was a matter of dumb luck or Varric's intervention, Fenris wasn't sure. The guardsman escorted him as far as the square leading up to Viscount's Keep, then went back to his patrol.<p>

Inside the halls were quiet and empty, with only the occasional guard making the rounds to interrupt the silence with the sound of boots on stone. Fenris's small room was tucked into an out of the way corridor no where near the Viscount's quarters, and so he could provide no compelling reason for why he approached the closed office door save for a sudden rush of intuition. He rested his hand on the latch, and it gave when he twisted it.

Hawke wasn't inside when he opened the door, but smoke still drifted upwards from the doused lamps. He hadn't been gone for long.

Fenris moved through the dark to the desk and reached for the execution order, which still sat where it had been abandoned that afternoon. He stopped just short of touching it.

At the very bottom of the page, Hawke had signed his name.

* * *

><p>Dawn was only a pale line of bluish white beginning to form on the eastern horizon as Hawke followed Knight-Commander Cullen up what felt like the single-most daunting, spiraling flight of stairs he'd ever tried to scale. There was no real precedent for how to deal with a visit from the Viscount at this absurdly early hour, but the templar had taken being roused from his bed well, considering the circumstances.<p>

Hawke's guts had twisted up inside him like a tangle of fishing wire, and he wondered if he'd made a mistake in taking Aveline's advice to heart. He brooded upon his indecision as he followed behind Cullen, caught up in his thoughts, but stopped when the templar did.

"I feel obligated to make mention of our other option, Excellency," Cullen said very quietly as they finally reached the top of the stairs. Two more templars stood guard outside a wooden door mottled all over with runes that seemed to undulate through the grain. "For how to deal with the apostate."

Hawke looked at him sideways with a bemused frown. Cullen cleared his throat. "The Rite of Tranquility would—"

His brief vision of Anders, the lyrium brand burnt into his forehead and all the vibrant light and passion in the world bled out of his eyes as he stared expressionlessly forward, churned his insides with sudden sickness. Hawke would sooner take the sword in hand himself. "That is out of the question."

Cullen didn't look surprised by his response, but persisted with a placating gesture. "There are compelling reasons for Your Excellency to consider this alternative, and I encourage you not to dismiss it out of hand. Executing the symbolic leader of a mage revolution could potentially—"

Hawke cut him off. "Anders is not the leader of anything, symbolic or otherwise. He is a traitor and a murderer, and this city makes an example of its traitors and murderers through lawful execution. That is the only course of action I will allow."

The templars guarding the door exchanged glances with each other. Cullen's jaw tightened. "I beg you to consider the long-term ramifications of this course of action, and what further trouble it could bring down upon the faithful."

"My decision is final." Hawke motioned towards the barred cell door. "I will speak to him in private now, Knight-Commander. Thank you."

Cullen held his stare for a long, tense moment, and Hawke fully expected to meet with more stubborn resistance. But the templar only inclined his head stiffly. "As you wish, Your Excellency." He turned to the two posted guards and nodded once. One of them fetched out a set of keys and proceeded to unlock the series of latches and deadbolts. Hawke waited in silence and subtly curled his fingers into fists to keep himself from fidgeting, to maintain some sense of decorum.

The templar opened the door an inch and looked back to Cullen questioningly. The Knight-Commander motioned them away with a nod, took hold of the keys, and offered them to Hawke with poorly disguised apprehension. "For when you take your leave." They turned, then, and picked their way down the stairs single file, but Hawke knew they wouldn't venture far. He waited until he could no longer see Cullen's shadow cast long against the stone wall, then approached the door, keenly aware of the unsteadiness in his hands and his dry throat. Cool evening light spilled through the tiny gap, but no noise. Hawke settled his hand on the latch, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

The prison cell was small and drafty, but at least possessed a wood-burning stove, a clean bed, and one window barred both by steel mesh and rods so that moon and starlight and some fresh air could pass through. The view of the city and the sea might have been tolerable under better circumstances. Anders, whose Gallows tunic did nothing to ward off the nighttime summer breeze, had drawn his chair up to the stove to sit and warm himself near the flames, but had risen to his feet when the door opened. When he saw Hawke, the defiance in his eyes and mouth that had undoubtedly been intended for the templars faded, and he looked at a loss for what to do with himself.

The feeling was mutual. Hawke stood in the doorway and stared like he hadn't just seen him two days ago, eight months' worth of anger and despair and betrayal and completely unjustifiable love balled up tightly in his chest. All he could think to say was, "Hello."

Caught off-guard, Anders breathed out a little laugh. "Hello."

He realized he still held the cell keys in his hand, and pocketed them as he stepped inside and closed the door. Watching him, Anders managed a shade of his usual wry humor. "I'd offer you a seat and something to drink, but..."

Hawke's involuntary laugh caught in his throat. "That's not funny." He could never have prepared himself for the excruciating agony of this confrontation, and thought of Wesley and Aveline, and the knife in her hand. A cruel cut, indeed.

"Thought I might as well give it a try," Anders said, wearing a wan smile. It faded gradually into something like resignation. "The Knight-Commander said noon, today."

Hawke looked out the cell's only window at the brightening eastern horizon, which had begun to take on a periwinkle hue as the stars overhead winked and blinked out of sight. Dawn would arrive within the hour. "Yes."

"How will..." Anders began, lost his voice to a whisper, and had to try again. "How will it happen?"

"A swordsman. One of the best." The qualifier felt absurd. The whole explanation felt absurd. Hawke took an unexpected step forward. "It will be over quickly. You shouldn't feel—feel any pain."

Anders's lips turned up at their corners in a tiny half-smile, like whatever he was feeling took him by surprise, but not unpleasantly. "I'm not worried about pain. But it helps, somehow. Knowing what is to come."

"I'm pleased one of us can make sense of this," Hawke said, bitterness creeping in.

Anders wasn't looking at him anymore, his eyes off to the side seeing something far past the Gallows walls."I can because I understand now. Why this has to be done, I mean. So does Justice." The mage stepped towards him and took his hand, and numbly Hawke allowed it, unable to speak. "This—all of it—it's been necessary from the very beginning. I didn't realize it at first. I thought, when you told me to leave, I thought perhaps I could find common purpose in Tevinter, perhaps find allies in the Free Marches, gather resources and stay the course. Then that bloody prince found me, and then iyou/i found me, and all I could think of was myself and my fear and failure, and what a ridiculous parody of itself my life had become. I was so angry."

"Anders." Hawke spoke his name like a summoning and tried to meet his eyes.

Anders traced his thumb over each of Hawke's knuckles, his touch so warm and familiar that they may as well have been standing in front of the hearthfire at the estate, embracing each other affectionately before falling into bed. Hawke tenderly touched the narrow line of his jaw without thinking and just checked the instinct to kiss him. Anders exhaled, a ragged sound filled with determination. "But I see my purpose now." He raised his eyes to meet Hawke's, but there was too much of Justice in the muddy brown irises, the timbre of his voice. "My death. It will be a healing balm for the lives I've ruined, and a rallying call to mages throughout Thedas. It evens the score and lays the foundation for what has to come next."

Hawke ripped his hand out of Anders' grasp and seized his shoulders, his melancholy overrun by fury so swiftly that he saw red. If rage alone could sunder the Veil and allow him to reach inside Anders and rip out the Fade spirit possessing him, he would have done it in an instant, if only for the opportunity to finally bludgeon into oblivion the creature whose single-minded drive to embody an unattainable virtue had ruined everything. It was easier to lay all of the blame at Justice's feet than to hate the willing host whose longing for freedom and purpose had invited the monster in to begin with. He couldn't bring himself to hate Anders, not now, not ever again. But he could certainly shout at him.

Anders' eyes quickened with alarm when Hawke grabbed hold of him, and he jerked his shackled hands up to grasp his wrists. "Hawke—"

"You have always, _always_ been a blind fool!" White anger pressed outwardly against the backs of his eyes as it rose, burning inside him. This wasn't what he came for, a small voice reminded him, but he ignored it and forged on. "A blind, stubborn, arrogant and idealistic fool, and now look at what you've done. It wasn't enough for you to escape from the Circle and just stay gone, or find new purpose with the Wardens. Everything the Maker has given you you've _squandered_, because you think you know the world better than anyone else. Well I'll tell you now, you don't, and if you'd just left well enough alone then—then—" He grasped for the right words but couldn't find them, and his retort died sharply on his lips.

Anders left his fingers curled around Hawke's wrists and met his eyes in a challenge. "Then what?" he demanded without expecting an answer. "We'd be happy together? The world would have been a better place? You don't really believe that. You can't possibly."

Hawke kept hold of his shoulders and felt the subtle shift of sinewy muscle under his touch. He should have let go. He didn't. "You murdered the Grand Cleric. You murdered her, Anders."

"I know," Anders said, and Hawke heard in his voice, saw in the contraction of his brow, a note of grief so deep that neither tears nor words could ever touch it. "Sometimes you have to shatter the world completely to change it for the better. Even the gentle things."

Inevitability settled around them in the room's empty spaces, cold and persistent like snow, and Hawke stepped close to Anders to keep it from dividing them. They were near enough to each other to share breath. "Why was it never enough for you to simply be free, and know that I loved you?"

Anders' fingers trembled some when he let go of Hawke's wrist and instead rested his palm against his cheek. "Don't ask me that. You know the answer already."

A warm yellow glow fell across the side of Anders' face and cast half his features into shadow. They both looked to the window in time to squint against the early morning sunlight. Down by the wharf, the ferryman would be preparing to cast off and sail for the mainland. Anders turned Hawke's face back to his with urgency. "Stay with me. Just for a little longer."

He'd waited too long to lance the wound, this was only making matters worse. Hawke started to shake his head and reached up to grasp Anders' hand, to pull it away, but instead found himself lacing their fingers together tightly, pressing the mage's warm palm to his lips. Emotion heaved from someplace deep inside him, his shoulders shaking. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Maker help me," he whispered, but his words were suddenly half muffled by Anders' mouth against his, the mage kissing him with insistent, burning need. Hawke's limbs were lethargic, slow to respond at first, until his long dormant desire flared to life and woke in him a ravenous hunger. He raked both hands up the back of Anders' neck and buried them in his fine, fair hair.

They didn't have the luxury of time that slow, tender lovemaking demanded, but they made do with the late hour and the drafty quarters and the cramped prison bed that gave in all the wrong places. Hawke reveled in the almost cerebral satisfaction of surrendering control of himself to Anders, who moved against him, and inside of him, with the raw and guileless want that had always been part of his better nature. They rediscovered each other's bodies like a lost path in the wilderness, groping clumsily for direction at first, then deftly as they stopped struggling with each other and began to move in tandem, reading each other's sighs and gasps, caught up in the hard, rough friction of skin against skin. With Anders between his knees, Hawke splayed a hand at the small of his back, feeling the muscles under his fingers flex and twitch with each rocking, driving thrust forward. He threw his head back against the mattress, his clenched teeth stifling a sound of pleasure.

"Garrett," Anders breathed against his jaw and fisted a hand in the sheet beside his head. His every movement pulled his body taut as a bowstring ready to snap, until Hawke felt a shudder run the length of him as he came, muffling his groan into Hawke's neck. Hawke hadn't intended to strive towards release, but Anders was nothing if not a diligent and attentive lover, and brought him gasping to completion with his touch moments later.

He lay still as he regained his senses, with his eyes closed and his arm flung over his head, struggling to catch his breath. Anders' fingers curling against his chest made him turn to meet his eyes eyes, and he realized in a glance that this hadn't changed anything, that the road had still run out and there was no more track to follow before the ledge. Knowledge cut through the afterglow without remorse. Anders brushed a loose lock of hair back from his face and said measuredly, "You should go now."

Hawke swore and reached for his face. "Anders, there's still so much—" he began, but Anders covered his mouth with his fingers and quieted him. "No. No, there isn't," he said.

They dressed without conversation, the buzz of morning activity filtering in blandly through the window. Somewhere below them, a templar recruit laughed mid-conversation with his fellows. Hawke's fingers moved thickly on his belt, fumbling with it. Anders stilled his hands and fastened it for him, smoothed out some of the wrinkles in his dark coat, and straightened his cuffs. The exchange was so familiar, so simple and domestic, but enduring it was like swallowing poison. He had to leave. There was no dignity to be found for either of them in delaying this any longer than they already had.

Anders must have read the intent on his face. If he felt fear, he kept it tamped down. "I'm so sorry," he said, earnestly but quietly, "that I was never what you needed. I tried."

If they'd had all the time in the world, Hawke realized without feeling, this was still the clearest the air would ever be between them, and that would have to be enough. He rested a hand against the side of Anders' neck and kissed his forehead, let his lips linger a moment, eyes closed. When he drew back Anders looked at him, his eyes weighted with expectation, but all Hawke could manage was a detached sounding, "Maker keep you," before he turned his back on him and left the room. In the end, he barely glimpsed the half-formed emotion on his lover's face as he shut the door and secured the latch.

For an interminable stretch of time Hawke stood in the corridor, breathing and taking measure of his thoughts. He pressed his hand and cheek against the wood and listened, but heard nothing at first. Then, gradually, the muted shuffle of footsteps reached him through the grain as Anders moved around inside the cell. Cleaning up, Hawke suspected. It was the most surreal of feelings, to know that on one side of door Anders was alive and breathing, and yet in a matter of hours he would be dead, and they would never see each other again. They would never touch each other, or kiss each other, or make love, or fight, or tell lies and keep dark secrets. The knowledge seeded relief traitorously in his heart. Some part of him had wanted this for years, a chance to let Anders go for good, to leave the past where it belonged and look forwards. He felt vile acknowledging it.

At the base of the spiraling stairwell, the Knight-Commander had left a small guard detail on duty to await his return. They rose to their feet respectfully when Hawke came into view. Dully, Hawke wondered if they expected him to salute.

"Here are the keys," he said colorlessly and offered them out. "Give the Knight-Commander my thanks."

One of the templars took the keys and dipped his head. "Yes, Your Excellency." But Hawke was already walking past him, out of the small station and onto the wharf where the morning sunlight glittered across the channel like gold.


End file.
